Forgive me if I missed this being posted, but adding in the 3rd official, Sherlock ends with a series average of 10.24m.

It's in danger of being lost amidst the Call the Midwife chat, but thats the highest series average for a BBC One drama in years and years. (Anyone sure exactly how many?). Amazing performance.


Been blocked in the UK now by some company who specialise in running YouTube channels... Presumably they're working on behalf of a rights holder (either Sky or perhaps a record company with music rights).

Anyway, I think its a good move by NBC in the US. They'll calculate that any viewers lost from the premiere will be compensated for by others brought in by the "buzz" - and will be back for the second episode on TV anyway.


Brilliant ratings too, once you add in the huge time shift. Is probably going to wind up neck-and-neck with Outnumbered's best series from 2010 (6.34m official average), despite a truly lousy lead-in. Who'd have guessed that when it premiered at 10.35 this time last year!

Well the Dancing On Ice twist is revealed. Will it help it against Call The Midwife and Top Gear?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s101/...tle-twist.html

I'd disagree with those license fee payers. They've got a pretty large number of ratings winners. They already aggresively chase ratings. But it's vital that they're justifying their special funding model. Commercial channels can have ratings winners. So something like Frozen Planet is a great example of a show you might not find on ITV1 but still does really well.

What you've described is the problem with nearly all public services. Once they're set up, the focus quickly falls away from providing a public service. Instead, it's about ensuring the survival of the organisation and justifying its existence into the future (keep that gravy train rolling, as they say!).

If BBC1 needs to beat ITV1 (or needs ITV1 to fail) to justify its existence, then BBC1 probably shouldn't be paid for by the public in the way it is. Or else ITV1 should be funded by the public as well! All public services are meant to exist in order to provide something that the private sector can't do adequately. They're not there to compete with the private sector. You wouldn't say that the NHS needs private hospitals to be sh*t in order to continue being funded by tax.

That's fortunately not the case. I think there's still an expectation that BBC1 should be doing its own thing. Generally, I think we've gradually accepted that BBC1 is allowed to behave quite close to a commercial business and successive operators have ensured that it simply can't be shut down - it's too big, it's too powerful. No politician could touch it. And ITV wouldn't want them going after ad money.

But there's still some expectation that there will be shows like Frozen Planet. More news and current affairs. That soaps will only be dragged out to 4 episodes a week and not 6.

The point at which BBC1 becomes all about ratings (rather than just 90% about ratings as it is now!) is actually what woud kill it. Imagine the backlash if they extended Eastenders to 5 episodes a week and started airing hour long episodes from 8-9pm on Mondays and Fridays to beat Corrie into the ground. ITV's ratings would go down. BBC1's ratings would go up. But the public response would be not so favourable.

To no-one's surprise, Danny Cohen has ordered a second series of Call the Midwife - The Sun

that results show rating, is looking very unhealthy.

Shame that TV Burp is ending this series. Lets hope ITV never axes Whitechapel or the Canadian Primeval

Another idea ripped-off from SCD - have the ITV producers no original ideas of their own at all ? The BBC should sue

BBC1 should be going for ratings, and they do. The BBC is a big organisation and there are channels like BBC2 and BBC4 which don't normally go for the ratings and offer distinctively different shows to what commercial channels offer. But BBC1 is a general entertainment channel and the prime concern should be to offer programmes which appeal to as many people as possible while also informing, educating and entertaining. This is what they do well.

The most obvious example of BBC1's huge appatite for ratings was the whole F1 debacle. They knew they couldn't keep all of the F1 going on the channel past 2012 with DQF so instead of just letting it go to commercial channels who were willing to pay the whole price to show F1 (Channel 4), they did all they could to ensure they kept the F1 on BBC1 in some form by tying up a deal for Sky. Some people would say that viewers lost out from this because other terrestrial channels were willing to show all the live races whereas now a lot of people without Sky can't see the races live. But the BBC has to be ruthless these days to make sure they keep the top sports rights so that their ratings stay up. They shouldn't let their terrestrial competitors get big sports rights like the F1 because it would hurt BBC1's ratings. Ratings are very important to the BBC, it's one of the key measures of success, particularly for BBC1.

Coronation Street drew 11.51m (44.15%) / 300k +1 for Becky Macdonald's exit. Peak: 12.07m.

Source: Michael Rosser
------------------------------
I think that will probably end up as the top rated soap episode of 2012. I can't see what else could beat that unless the Christmas Day EastEnders isn't up against DA.

The BBC needs big ratings successes otherwise people will start asking why are they paying the TV licence and there's nothing popular on ? In the 60s when ITV was still new the BBC audience share fell to about 20% leading to widespread panic within the BBC and a huge shake-up of programmes.

That will probably timeshift to over 12 million and will be the top rated soap episode this year.

Great rating for it considering the "lack of snow" and the such like this year. Corrie seems to do better for "big events" than EastEnders does, as shown a few weeks ago.

That's a great rating. I guess it will spark the debate about how can Corrie reach this but EE can't (with such significant episodes over the past month)

The above is the tape-checked average between 8.30-8.55pm, by the way, as the episode finished 5 minutes early. The full slot average was 11.2m, 43% (incl +1) peaking with 12.4m. Corrie's 7.30pm episode had 10.6m, 45%.

Sam_Hodges Sam Hodges
Audience for #MrsBrownsBoys up 500k on last week's show, averaging 5.2m at 9.30pm. #BBC1

JohnWilliams004 John Williams
#Skins returns to E4 with 524k (inc +1)
#GadgetGeeks on Sky 1 peaks with 267,000
#Obese on Sky 1 averages 328k

The IT Crowd.

He said genuinely funny

They were all like that once

Some of the US sitcoms actually used to have ''filmed before a live audience'' on the closing credits

Excellent for Corrie. Did we feature the wrong episode on the RPG? It looks like we might have done.


Ouch. Not a great peak! Looks like viewers are voting with the ultimate gadget of all... their remote controls.

Strange how a character's departure who's only been in the show for 5 years got 11.5m but Pat Butcher's who has been in her soap for 20+ years got less than 10m.

- On BBC1, EastEnders got a strong 9.06m (35.4%), Royal Bodyguard was still low with 2.79m (11.1%) and Mrs Brown's Boys was up to 5.22m (20%).
- Final part of ITV1 drama Above Suspicion wins 9pm slot, near 6m.
- On C4, new series of Superscrimpers and Party Paramedics both got around 1.42m, while Coppers lifted to 2.18m.
- CBB got c2.8m

Sources: Michael Rosser, Liam Hamilton

Wow, I believe I recommended Whitechapel to you during our "you should give some ITV drama a try" dispute - you watched the repeat on ITV3 - and you're still watching it...

I'm looking forward to the 3rd series, and I hope the ratings are enough to keep it going...

2.8m for Celebrity Big Brother, second in its timeslot for the first half an hour and drawing level with BBC One's The Royal Bodyguard.

Very nice. Best possible start to finale week.

Where did those 2 million extra Corrie viewers come from? Would people seriously just tune in for a character departure and not watch week in week out?

2.8m brilliant for CBB, that's probably not even with +1 as well!
Ties with the Royal Bodyguard.

Excellent for Corrie.

It probably beat the Royal Bodyguard then lol

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